Michael Jordan or LeBron James? Comparing players from different eras is incomplete

Comparing players from different eras like Michael Jordan and LeBron James to find the NBA GOAT is fun, but a truly impossible task

It’s hard to avoid the debates surrounding which NBA player is the best of all time. The last three eras were championed by Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, and there is a case to be made for any one of those as the greatest to ever do it in the NBA in the same way that there is a case to be made for Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson.

Your mind might be playing tricks on you, though. Stay with me for a few paragraphs here…

The human mind is a wonderful biological specimen, a truly remarkable supercomputer that sits between each of our ears. Just ponder for a moment on how incredible it is that our neurological system is perfectly wired so that when we want to lift our arm, it’s as simple as willing it into action with a thought.

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To keep from burning out completely, the human brain takes some shortcuts by compartmentalizing packets of information together in a schema. Usually, those shortcuts serve us well, they prevent us from overthinking and leave brainpower for more important decisions.

When you see a chair, your brain doesn’t need to wonder what the structure is, that’s an automatic process. Once it determines it is a chair, typically your brain doesn’t do much work to ruminate on the structural integrity of the chair before sitting down.

Your brain sees a chair, a familiar, typical object, and knows it has the option to sit. You simply see a chair and sit down, because the way you interact with a chair is packaged nicely together in a schema within your neurological system. It uses previously compartmentalized information about what chairs are and how they are used and you simply sit with no thought about how to sit or nervousness about whether the chair will support you or not. Your previous experience tells you it’s a chair, it’s meant for sitting.

When we think of sports, it seems as though two basketball players should be easily comparable. The schema for basketball players says they are meant for comparing. The news cycle of “who played better” and “who played worse,” conditions this thought process.

The compartmentalized information in our mind about Michael Jordan fits the generally same structure of LeBron James. They both are incredible athletes who play in the NBA, and therefore the two things are similar and therefore should be comparable.

It’s like chairs. You might have a stool next to a standard dinner table chair, but your mind essentially sees them as the same thing since they are packaged in the same schema; something that allows you a place to sit, a sense of relief.

Our brains are too quick when it comes to comparing players from different eras, though.

You see, to preserve brainpower, yes, it’s a logical jump to see Jordan and compare him to James. Similar comparisons with Bryant and Jordan exist and will continue to exist until the end of time.

Our brain sees two likes and wants to compare and contrast.

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They are not the same, however. Each era is different. Playstyles are different, and the game of basketball has constantly evolved over time with new trends coming in and out of popularity.

When Jordan played college basketball, the 3-point line didn’t even exist. For James’s career, the 3-point era has pretty much been a defining characteristic of the era in which he played.

How can we possibly compare the two given that the strategies for teams were completely different? To do so completely ignores the beauty of each era and the unique thread that created the game as we knew it in that specific era. To break down the walls and try to compare players across eras does a disservice to appreciating the ever-changing nature and evolution of the game.

Furthermore, each new trend in the game is further built on the learnings and the practices of the era before it, whether collectively through the data and practicum mined from the large subset of basketball strategy across teams, or on an individual level through mentors and coaches. This, on its own, practically invalidates the credibility to any comparison of players across two eras.

Bryant’s quote on Jordan in episode 5 of The Last Dance stands out:

"“I truly hate having discussions about who would win one-on-one. You heard fans saying, ‘Hey Kobe, you’d beat Michael one-on-one’ and I feel like, yo, what you get from me is from him. I don’t get five championships here without him. ‘Cause he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice.””"

Bryant doesn’t believe he would be the player he is without the close mentorship of Jordan.

How can you compare something that is derivative to that which it is derived?

By very definition, the further the game progresses, the more refined strategy and health sciences get, of course players should be even better (or, at the very least, different) as each era turns over.

Likewise, Jordan provided the blueprint for players like James to brand themselves and start diversifying their revenue streams early on in their careers, providing them more financial flexibility to fortify their training resources.

Each new era is built on that which came before it. Every greatest player of the era faces a unique road of challenges that the greatest of the previous era did not face.

Comparing players across eras is fun and worth debating, and we’ll continue doing it even though in the back of our minds we probably know it’s an impossible question.

Trust me when I say, though, there is no right answer.

James to Jordan might feel like a one-to-one comparison because of a schema, it’s absolutely not. A bench might look like a stool because of a schema, it’s absolutely not.

What we can appreciate across eras is greatness. The cream of the crop for each era is worth celebrating and pointing to as the mark of excellence for that point in time.

But it would be pretty silly to compare Albert Einstein to Neil deGrasse Tyson, right?